Despite all the efforts being made by rivals to dent Maruti Suzuki India’s sales, the Indo-Japanese carmaker continues to outsmart everyone. The 35-years old company hasn’t been just retaining its leadership position, but is recording impressive year-on-year growth. In the first two months of this fiscal year, Maruti Suzuki India recorded over 13 per cent growth in its domestic sales. The company sold a total of 2,30,207 units as against 2,03,068 units sold in the corresponding time last year.
While some of the old products like Alto 800, WagonR, Swift and Dzire continue to do well, it’s the new-age cars like Baleno and Brezza that have helped the company record positive growth.
In May 2016, 10,000 units of the Maruti Baleno were sold as against the Hyundai i20’s 10341 units sold in the same month. The gap between the sales of the two cars in April 2016 was 1,585 units. Though the Hyundai i20 has managed to retain its top position in May as well, the gap has narrowed quite significantly which might worry the South Korean carmaker. Having said that, the i20 Active – the crossover version of the hatchback – is also counted in the total sales of the vehicle. For example, the i20 Active’s contribution in the overall sales of the i20 in May 2016 was 1872 – a good 18 per cent! On the other hand, a total of 8,469 Elite i20 units were sold in the month, thus taking the total number to 10341.
Maruti Suzuki Baleno is the second premium offering from the company, and is being sold via Nexa range of dealerships. The Baleno comes in two engine options – a 1.2L K-series VTVT petrol (83bhp, 115Nm) and a 1.3-litre DDiS 190 (74bhp, 190Nm) – which are the same that do duty in the Swift as well. Though the power figure of both the engines remain similar to that of the Swift’s, the Baleno offers better power-to-weight ratio due to the latter’s 100kg less weight. It’s in fact faster to accelerate than the Hyundai Elite i20.
